"It is one of the few events where there is physical contact between athletes. You are jostling, crouched down at the line waiting for the baton in a group lined up hip to hip."

He added that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" if he ran in the relay.

"When you get the baton you fly straight to the inner curve, so there is a massive potential for disaster on changeovers," he said.

However, Pistorius's manager Peet van Zyl said that the plan was for the 21-year-old to run the first leg of any relay.

Pistorius was cleared to run against able-bodied athletes in May after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) overturned a ruling from the IAAF that his prosthetic racing blades give him a competitive advantage.

But Davies said the IAAF still had concerns over the CAS ruling, which cleared Pistorius to compete only if he used the same model of Cheetah blade that was subjected to laboratory testing.

"There is still a big issue over the prosthetics," said Davies. "We just don't have the resources to check every time he is running what he is using.

"If Oscar runs 44.7 in Lucerne, we would be totally stupid not to do something because you shouldn't improve by two seconds in two weeks."

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